350, was a great warrior, like many of his predecessors; but
his policy, and the objects for which he fought, were markedly
different from theirs. ... Ermanaric made no attempt to invade
the provinces of the Roman Empire; but he resolved to make his
Ostrogothic kingdom the centre of a great empire of his own.
The seat of his kingdom was, as tradition tells us, on the
banks of the Dnieper [and it extended to the Baltic]. ... A
Roman historian compares Ermanaric to Alexander the Great; and
many ages afterwards his fame survived in the poetic
traditions of Germans, Norsemen and Anglo-Saxons. ...
Ermanaric was the first king since Ostrogotha who belonged to
the Amaling family. ... Henceforward the kingship of the
Ostrogoths became hereditary among the descendants of
Ermanaric. During this time the Visigoths appear to have been
practically independent, divided into separate tribes ruled by
their own 'judges' or chieftains; but ... it is probable that in
theory they acknowledged the supremacy of the Ostrogothic
king. ... Ermanaric died in the year 375, and the Ostrogoths
were subdued by the Hunnish king Balamber. For a whole century
they remained subject to the Huns." One section of the
Ostrogothic nation escaped from the Hunnish conquest and
joined the Visigoths, who found a refuge on the Roman side of
the Danube. The bulk of the nation bore the yoke until the
death of the great Hun king, Attila, in 453, when the strife
between his sons gave them an opportunity to throw it off.
_H. Bradley,
Story of the Goths,
chapter 5._
"The forecast of European history which then [during the reign
of Hermanric] seemed probable would have been that a great
Teutonic Empire, stretching from the Danube to the Don, would
take the place which the colossal Slav Empire now holds in the
map of Europe, and would be ready, as a civilised and
Christianised power, to step into the place of Eastern Rome
when, in the fulness of centuries, the sceptre should drop
from the nerveless hands of the Cæsars of Byzantium."
_T. Hodgkin,
Italy and Her Invaders,
book 4, chapter 1._
GOTHS: (Visigoths) A. D. 376.
Admission into the Roman Empire.
"Let us suppose that we have arrived at the year (364) when
the feeble and timid Valens was placed on the Eastern throne
by his brother Valentinian. At that time, Ulfilas would be in
the fifty-third year of his age and the twenty-third of his
episcopate. Hermanric, king of the Ostrogoths, a centenarian
and more, was still the most important figure in the loosely
welded Gothic confederacy. His special royalty may possibly
have extended over Northern Hungary, Lithuania, and Southern
Russia. The 'torpid' Gepidæ, dwelt to the north of him, to the
south and west the Visigoths, whose settlements may perhaps
have occupied the modern countries of Roumania, Transylvania
and Southern Hungary. The two great nations, the Ostrogoths
and Visigoths, were known at this time to the Romans, perhaps
among themselves also, by the respective names of the
Gruthungi and Thervingi, but it will be more convenient to
disregard these appellations and speak of them by the names
which they made conspicuous in later history."
_T. Hodgkin,
Italy and Her Invaders,
introduction, chapter 3._
This was the situation of Gothia, or the Gothic Empire of
Central Europe, when the Huns made their appearance on the
scene. "An empire, formerly powerful, the first monarchy of
the Huns, had been overthrown by the Sienpi, at a distance of
500 leagues from the Roman frontier, and near to that of
China, in the first century of the Christian era. ... The
entire nation of the Huns, abandoning to the Sienpi its
ancient pastures bordering on China, had traversed the whole
north of Asia by a march of 1,300 leagues. This immense horde,
swelled by all the conquered nations whom it carried along in
its passage, bore down on the plains of the Alans, and
defeated them on the banks of the Tanais in a great battle.
{1557}
It received into its body a part of the vanquished tribe,
accompanied by which it continued to advance towards the West;
while other Alans, too haughty to renounce their independence,
had retreated, some into Germany, whence we shall see them
afterwards pass into Gaul; others into the Caucasian
mountains, where they preserve their name to this day. The
Goths, who bordered on the Alans, had fertilised by their
labours the rich plains which lie to the north of the Danube
and of the Black Sea. More civilised than any of the kindred
Germanic tribes, they began to make rapid progress in the
social sciences. ... This comparatively fortunate state of
things was suddenly interrupted by the appearance of the
Huns,--the unlooked-for arrival of that savage nation,
which, from the moment it crossed the Borysthenes, or the
Dnieper, began to burn their villages and their crops; to
massacre, without pity, men, women, and children; to devastate
and destroy whatever came within the reach of a Scythian
horseman. ... The great Hermanric, whose kingdom extended from
the Baltic to the Black Sea, would not have abandoned his
sceptre to the Huns without a struggle; but at this very time
he was murdered by a domestic enemy. The nations he had
subjugated prepared on every side for rebellion. The
Ostrogoths, after a vain resistance, broke their alliance with
the Visigoths; while the latter, like an affrighted flock of
sheep, trooping together from all parts of their vast
territory to the right bank of the Danube, refused to combat
those superhuman beings by whom they were pursued. They
stretched out their supplicating hands to the Romans on the
other bank, entreating that they might be permitted to seek a
refuge from the butchery which threatened them, in those wilds
of Mœsia and Thrace which were, almost valueless to the
empire." Their prayer was granted by the Emperor Valens, on
the condition that they surrender their arms and that the sons
of their chief men be given as hostages to the Romans. The
great Visigothic nation was then (A. D. 376) transported
across the Danube to the Mœsian shore--200,000 warriors in
number, besides children and women and slaves in proportion.
But the Roman officers charged with the reception of the Goths
were so busy in plundering the goods and outraging the
daughters and wives of their guests that they neglected to
secure the arms of the grim warriors of the migration. Whence
great calamities ensued.
_J. C. L. de Sismondi,
Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapters 3 and 5 (volume 1)._
GOTHS: (Visigoths): A. D. 378.
Defeat and destruction of Valens.
When the Visigothic nation was permitted to cross the Danube,
A. D. 376, to escape from the Huns, and was admitted into
Lower Mœsia, nothing seems to have been left undone that would
exasperate and make enemies of these unwelcome colonists.
Every possible extortion and outrage was practised upon them.
To buy food, they were driven to part, first, with their
slaves, then with their household goods, and finally with
their children, whom they sold. In despair, at last, they
showed signs of revolt, and the fatuous Roman commander
precipitated it by a murderous outrage at Marcianople (modern
Shumla). In a battle which soon followed near that town, the
Romans were disastrously beaten. The Visigoths were now joined
by a large body of Ostrogoths, who passed the Danube without
resistance, and received into their ranks, moreover, a
considerable force of Gothic soldiers who had long been in the
service of the empire. The open country of Mœsia and Thrace was
now fully exposed to them (the fortified cities they could not
reduce), and they devastated it for a time without restraint.
But Valens, the emperor in the east, and Gratian in the west,
exerted themselves in co-operation to gather forces against
them, and for two years there was a doubtful struggle carried
on. The most serious battle, that of The Willows (Ad Salices),
fought in the region now called the Dobrudscha, was a victory
to neither side. On the whole the Romans appear to have had
some advantage in these campaigns, and to have narrowed the
range of the Gothic depredations. But the host of the
barbarians was continually increased by fresh reinforcements
from beyond the Danube. Even their own ferocious enemies, Huns
and Alans, were permitted to join their standard. Yet, in face
of this fact, the folly and jealousy of the Emperor Valens led
him to stake all on the chances of a battle which he made
haste to rush into, when he learned that his nephew Gratian
was marching to his assistance from the west. He coveted the
sole honors of a victory; but death and infamy for himself and
an overwhelming calamity to the empire were what he achieved.
The battle was fought near Hadrianople, on the 9th day of
August, A. D. 378. Two-thirds of the Roman army perished on
the awful field, and the body of the emperor was never found.
_T. Hodgkin,
Italy and Her Invaders,
book 1, chapter 1._
ALSO IN:
_E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapters 26._
_H. Bradley,
Story of the Goths,
chapter 8._
See, also, ROME: A. D, 363-379.
GOTHS: A. D. 379-382.
Settlement of the Goths by Theodosius, in Mœsia and Thrace.
"The forces of the East were nearly annihilated at the
terrible battle of Adrianople: more than 60,000 Roman soldiers
perished in the fight or in the pursuit; and the time was long
past when such a loss could have been easily repaired by fresh
levies. Nevertheless, even after this frightful massacre, the
walls of Adrianople still opposed an unconquerable resistance
to the barbarians. Valour may supply the place of military
science in the open field, but civilised nations recover all
the advantages of the art of war in the attack or defence of
fortified towns. ... The Goths, leaving Adrianople in their
rear, advanced, ravaging all around them, to the foot of the
walls of Constantinople; and, after some unimportant
skirmishes, returned westward through Macedonia, Epirus and
Dalmatia. From the Danube to the Adriatic, their passage was
marked by conflagration and blood. Whilst the European
provinces of the Greek empire sunk under these calamities, the
Asiatic provinces took a horrible vengeance on the authors of
them." The Gothic youths who had been required as hostages
when the nation crossed the Danube, and those who were
afterwards sold by their starving parents, were now gathered
together in different cities of the Asiatic provinces and
massacred in cold blood, at a given signal, on the same day
and hour. By this atrocious act, all possible reconciliation
with the Goths might well seem to be destroyed. The prospect
was discouraging enough to the new emperor who now ascended
the vacant throne of Valens (A. D. 379),--the soldier
Theodosius, son of Theodosius who delivered Britain from the
Scots.
{1558}
Chosen by the Emperor Gratian to be his colleague and Emperor
of the East, Theodosius undertook a most formidable task. "The
abandonment of the Danube had opened the entrance of the
empire, not only to the Goths, but to all the tribes of
Germany and Scythia. ... The blood of the young Goths which
had been shed in Asia was daily avenged with interest over all
that remained of Mœsian, Thrasian, Dalmatian, or Grecian race.
It was more particularly during these four years of
extermination that the Goths acquired the fatal celebrity
attached to their name, which is still that of the destroyers
of civilisation. Theodosius began by strengthening the
fortified cities, recruiting the garrisons, and exercising his
soldiers in small engagements whenever he felt assured of
success; he then waited to take advantage of circumstances; he
sought to divide his enemies by intrigue, and, above all,
strenuously disavowed the rapacity of the ministers of Valens,
or the cruelty of Julius; he took every occasion of declaring
his attachment and esteem for the Gothic people, and at length
succeeded in persuading them that his friendship was sincere.
... The very victories of the Goths, their pride, their
intemperance, at length impaired their energy. Fritigern, who,
in the most difficult moments, had led them on with so much
ability, was dead; the jealousies of independent tribes were
rekindled. ... It was by a series of treaties, with as many
independent chieftains, that the nation was at length induced
to lay down its arms: the last of these treaties was concluded
on the 30th of October, 382. It restored peace to the Eastern
empire, six years after the Goths crossed the Danube. This
formidable nation was thus finally established within the
boundary of the empire of the East. The vast regions they had
ravaged were abandoned to them, if not in absolute
sovereignty, at least on terms little at variance with their
independence. The Goths settled in the bosom of the empire had
no kings; their hereditary chiefs were consulted under the
name of judges, but their power was unchanged. ... The Goths
gave a vague sort of recognition to the sovereignty of the
Roman emperor; but they submitted neither to his laws, his
magistrates, nor his taxes. They engaged to maintain 40,000
men for the service of Theodosius; but they were to remain a
distinct army. ... It was, probably, at this period that their
apostle, bishop Ulphilas, who had translated the Gospels into
their tongue, invented the Mœso-Gothic character, which bears
the name of their new abode."
_J. C. L. de Sismondi,
Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 5 (volume 1)._
ALSO IN:
_E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 26._
GOTHS: A. D. 395.
Alaric's invasion of Greece.
"The death of Theodosius [A. D. 395] threw the administration
of the Eastern Empire into the hands of Rufinus, the minister
of Arcadius; and that of the Western into those of Stilicho,
the guardian of Honorius. The discordant elements which
composed the Roman empire began to reveal all their
incongruities under these two ministers. ... The two ministers
hated one another with all the violence of aspiring ambition."
_G. Finlay,
Greece under the Romans,
chapter 2, section 8._
"The animosity existing between Stilicho and the successive
ministers of the Eastern Emperor (an animosity which does not
necessarily imply any fault on the part of the former) was one
most potent cause of the downfall of the Western Empire. ...
Alaric (the all-ruler) surnamed Baltha (the bold) was the
Visigothic chieftain whose genius taught him the means of
turning this estrangement between the two Empires to the best
account. He was probably born about 360. His birth-place was
the island Peuce, in the Delta of the Danube, apparently south
of what is now termed the Sulina mouth of that river. We have
already met with him crossing the Alps as a leader of
auxiliaries in the army of Theodosius."
_T. Hodgkin,
Italy and Her Invaders,
book 1, chapter 4._
"At this time [A. D. 395] Alaric, partly from disgust at not
receiving all the preferment which he expected, and partly in
the hope of compelling the government of the Eastern Empire to
agree to his terms, quitted the imperial service and retired
towards the frontiers, where he assembled a force sufficiently
large to enable him to act independently of all authority.
Availing himself of the disputes between the ministers of the
two emperors, and perhaps instigated by Rufinus or Stilicho to
aid their intrigues, he established himself in the provinces
to the south of the Danube. In the year 395 he advanced to the
walls of Constantinople; but the movement was evidently a
feint. ... After this demonstration, Alaric marched into
Thrace and Macedonia, and extended his ravages into Thessaly.
... When the Goth found the northern provinces exhausted, he
resolved to invade Greece and Peloponnesus, which had long
enjoyed profound tranquillity. ... Thermopylæ was left
unguarded, and Alaric entered Greece without encountering any
resistance. The ravages committed by Alaric's army have been
described in fearful terms; villages and towns were burnt, the
men were murdered, and the women and children carried away to
be sold as slaves by the Goths. ... The walls of Thebes had
been rebuilt, and it was in such a state of defence that
Alaric could not venture to besiege it, but hurried forward to
Athens. He concluded a treaty with the civil and military
authorities, which enabled him to enter that city without
opposition. ... Athens evidently owed its good treatment to
the condition of its population, and perhaps to the strength
of its walls, which imposed some respect on the Goths; for the
rest of Attica did not escape the usual fate of the districts
through which the barbarians marched. The town of Eleusis, and
the great temple of Ceres, were plundered and then destroyed.
... Alaric marched unopposed into the Peloponnesus, and, in a
short time, captured almost every city in it without meeting
with any resistance. Corinth, Argos, and Sparta were all
plundered by the Goths." Alaric wintered in the Peloponnesus;
in the following spring he was attacked, not only by the
forces of the Eastern Empire, whose subjects he had outraged,
but by Stilicho, the energetic minister of the Roman West.
Stilicho, in a vigorous campaign, drove the Goths into the
mountains on the borders of Elis and Arcadia; but they escaped
and reached Epirus, with their plunder (see ROME: A. D.
396-398). "The truth appears to be that Alaric availed himself
so ably of the jealousy with which the court of Constantinople
viewed the proceedings of Stilicho, as to negotiate a treaty,
by which he was received into the Roman service, and that he
really entered Epirus as a general of Arcadius. ... He
obtained the appointment of Commander-in-chief of the imperial
forces in Eastern' Illyricum, which be held for four years.
During this time he prepared his troops to seek his fortune in
the Western Empire."
_G. Finlay,
Greece under the Romans,
chapter 2, section 8._
{1559}
"The birth of Alaric, the glory of his past exploits, and the
confidence in his future designs, insensibly united the body
of the nation under his victorious standard; and, with the
unanimous consent of the barbarian chieftains, the
Master-general of Illyricum was elevated, according to ancient
custom, on a shield, and solemnly proclaimed king of the
Visigoths."
_E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 30._
GOTHS: A. D. 400.
Failure of Gainas at Constantinople.
His defeat and death.
See ROME: A. D. 400-518.
GOTHS: (Visigoths): A. D. 400-403.
Alaric's first invasion of Italy.
After Alaric had become a commissioned general of the Eastern
Empire and had been placed in command of the great præfecture
of Eastern Illyricum, he "remained quiet for three years,
arming and drilling his followers, and waiting for the
opportunity to make a bold stroke for a wider and more secure
dominion. In the autumn of the year 400, knowing that Stilicho
was absent on a campaign in Gaul, Alaric entered Italy. For
about a year and a half the Goths ranged almost unresisted
over the northern part of the peninsula. The emperor, whose
court was then at Milan, made preparations for taking refuge
in Gaul; and the walls of Rome were hurriedly repaired in
expectation of an attack. On the Easter Sunday of the year 402
(March 19), the camp of Alaric, near Pollentia, was surprised
by Stilicho, who rightly guessed that the Goths would be
engaged in worship, and would not imagine their Roman
fellow-Christians less observant of the sacred day than
themselves. Though unprepared for battle, the barbarians made
a desperate stand, but at last they were beaten. ... Alaric
was able to retreat in good order, and he soon after crossed
the Po with the intention of marching against Rome. However,
his troops began to desert in large numbers, and he had to
change his purpose. In the first place he thought of invading
Gaul, but Stilicho overtook him and defeated him heavily at
Verona [A. D. 403]. Alaric himself narrowly escaped capture by
the swiftness of his horse. Stilicho, however, was not very
anxious for the destruction of Alaric, as he thought he might
some day find him a convenient tool in his quarrels with the
ministers of Arcadius [the Emperor of the East]. So he offered
Alaric a handsome bribe to go away from Italy"--[back to
Illyria].
_H. Bradley,
Story of the Goths,
chapter 10._
ALSO IN:
_T. Hodgkin,
Italy and Her Invaders,
book 1, chapter 5._
_E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 30._
GOTHS: (Visigoths): A. D. 408-410.
Alaric's three sieges and sack of Rome.
His death.
See ROME: A. D. 408-410.
GOTHS: (Visigoths): A. D. 410-419.
Founding of the kingdom of Toulouse.
On the death of Alaric (A. D. 410), his brother-in-law,
Ataulphus, or Atawulfs, was chosen king by the wandering
Visigothic nation, and the new king succeeded in negotiating a
treaty of peace with the court at Ravenna. As the result of
it, the Goths moved northwards and, at the beginning of the
year 412, they passed out of Italy into Gaul. A number of
usurpers had risen in the western provinces, during the five
years since 407, encouraged by the disorders of the time, and
Ataulphus accepted a commission from Honorius to put them down
and to restore the imperial authority in southern Gaul. The
commission was faithfully executed in one of its parts; but
the authority which the Gothic king established was, rather,
his own, than that of the imperial puppet at Ravenna. Before
the end of 413, he was master of most of the Gallic region on
the Mediterranean (though Marseilles resisted him), and
westward to the Atlantic. Then, at Narbonne, he married Galla
Placidia, sister of Honorius, who had been a prisoner in the
camp of the Goths for four years, but who was gallantly wooed,
it would seem, and gently and truly won, by her Gothic lover.
Apparently still commissioned by the Roman emperor, though
half at war with him, and though his marriage with Placidia
was haughtily forbidden and unrecognized, Ataulphus next
carried his arms into Spain, already ravaged by Vandals, Alans
and Suevic bands. But there he was cut off in the midst of his
conquests, by assassination, in August, 415. The Goths,
however, pursued their career under another valiant king,
Wallia, who conquered the whole of Spain and meditated the
invasion of Africa; but was persuaded to give up both
conquests and prospects to Honorius, in exchange for a
dominion which embraced the fairest portions of Gaul. "His
victorious Goths, forty-three years after they had passed the
Danube, were established, according to the faith of treaties,
in the possession of the second Aquitaine, a maritime province
between the Garonne and the Loire, under the civil and
ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Bordeaux. ... The Gothic limits
were enlarged by the additional gift of some neighboring
dioceses; and the successors of Alaric fixed their royal
residence at Toulouse, which included five populous quarters,
or cities, within the spacious circuit of its walls. ... The
Gothic limits contained the territories of seven
cities--namely, those of Bordeaux, Périgueux, Angoulême, Agen,
Saintes, Poitiers, and Toulouse. Hence the district obtained
the name of Septimania."
_E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 31 (with note by Dr. Wm. Smith)._
It was at the end of the year 418, that the Goths settled
themselves in their new kingdom, of Toulouse. The next year,
Wallia died, and was succeeded by Theodoric, a valorous
soldier of the race of the Balthings, who played a
considerable part in the history of the next thirty years.
_H. Bradley,
Story of the Goths,
chapter 11-12._
ALSO IN:
_T. Hodgkin,
Italy and Her Invaders,
book 1, chapter 8 (volume 1)._
GOTHS: (The Visigoths): A. D.419-451.
The Kingdom of Toulouse.
"By the peace which their king Wallia concluded with Honorius
(416) after the restoration of Placidia, they [the Visigoths]
had obtained legal possession of the district called Aquitania
Secunda, together with the territory round Toulouse, all of
which allotment went by the name of Septimania or Gothia. For
ten years (419-429) there had been firm peace between
Visigoths and Romans; then, for ten years more (429-439),
fierce and almost continued war, Theodoric, king of the
Visigoths, endeavouring to take Arles and Narbonne; Aetius and
his subordinate Litorius striving to take the Gothic capital
of Toulouse, and all but succeeding. And in these wars Aetius
had availed himself of his long-standing friendship with the
Huns to enlist them as auxiliaries against the warriors of
Theodoric, dangerous allies who plundered friends and enemies.
... For the last twelve years (439-451) there had been peace,
but scarcely friendship, between the Courts of Ravenna and
Toulouse."
_T. Hodgkin,
Italy and Her Invaders,
book 2, chapter 3 (volume 2)._
{1560}